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"id": 226814,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Ms. Abdalla",
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"speaker": {
"id": 245,
"legal_name": "Abdallah Jumaa Ngozi",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move the following Motion:- THAT, aware of the damage caused to the youth through use of drugs and other chemical substances; aware further that the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA) was not established through an Act of Parliament; this House grants leave for introduction of a Bill for an Act of Parliament entitled \"the Drug and Substance Abuse Control Authority Bill\" in order to establish an authority that will be responsible for policy formulation, implementation, monitoring, enforcement and the development of regulations related to drug and chemical substance abuse. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, drug problem in Kenya is deepening every single day. As early as 1984, psychiatrists meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, declared that drugs and substance abuse in Kenya was a time bomb waiting to explode. At that point, we were only talking of alcohol, cigarettes and, probably, cannabis sativa . Currently, the range of drugs has extensively expanded. The situation may have exploded in some regions of Kenya such as Malindi, Mombasa and Eastlands in Nairobi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a study of drugs used between children aged 11 years to 24 years, indicate that 61 per cent of children in that age group have experimented with alcohol; April 11, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 529 58 per cent with cigarettes while 21 per cent have experimented with bhang . Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the effects of these drugs are telling in all sectors of our society; from women in Kangemi campaigning against alcohol dens to the cocaine haul captured within our borders. Unregulated drug rehabilitation centres are springing all over the country. This is because of the demand for rehabilitating drug and alcohol addicts. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the effect on our economy can only be compared to the effect of HIV/AIDS pandemic. Drugs target the same population segment. As we all know, Kenya is a young nation and should we allow diseases and drug addiction to affect that growing population, it means we are destroying the future of our country. The supply of drugs has increased in our country. In fact, in this country, drugs are the only products that can be said to have been affected by the purported growth in our economy. You have noticed that we are now seeing more cases of people being caught with bhang . The reason for this is that, whereas in the past you needed a few kilogrammes of bhang to make a living as a drug peddler, you now need several tonnes to make the same amount of money. There is intense competition from prescription drugs that are giving serious competition to bhang . It only takes Kshs50 to get two tablets of sea drug that is said to cause triple the effect that bhang can cause. The supply has definitely increased and, therefore, the price of the drugs has als gone down and it is much easier to get them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other reason is that we do not have a structured and co-ordinated approach to the fight against drugs. At the moment, there are 13 Government institutions involved in the fight against drugs. These include the Anti-Narcotics Police, the Immigration Department, the Customs Department, the Forest Department among others. Since there is no co-ordination among those players, we end up having an un-co-ordinated approach. In the end, the supply and demand keeps going up. Therefore, there is need to deal with the supply and demand through increasing co-ordination among the players who are working in the sector. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the effects of drug abuse have also been felt in the area of security. Studies have shown that over 70 per cent of those arrested for crimes such as robbery with violence, rape and so on are said to be drug abusers, especially bhang . Unless we take this matter seriously, the situation will get much worse than it is today. There are those who think that this proposed Authority will have conflict of interest with the NACADA. Let me assure them that the responsibility for NACADA is merely to campaign against drug abuse and not to monitor and co-ordinate the activities of those institutions that are supposed to deal with the control of supply and demand of the drugs within the country. Perhaps, the only area of success that this Government has been able to push in the area of drug abuse is when they used the Weight and Measures Act to ensure that children do not get access to alcoholic drinks in sachets."
}